the Capture of Maedhros and the Sights of Angband
by OziiJason
Summary: A short story occurring after the Oath is taken by the sons of Feanor. It follows the story of Maedhros. He is taken prisoner by Morgoth's army and brought into Angband. With a few liberties and a first-person PoV, I have based this story off three pages found in Chapter 13 of the Silmarillion as well as the themes found through-out all Middle-earth stories.


Of the Capture of Maedhros and the Sights of Angband

Its odor is unmistakable. Orc blood. It dribbles heavily onto the earth. I brought my blade up through the cretin's throat and met the chin. He fell back, his face fading with gurgling loathing. When the next two came, I darted around a thick tree and slid my sword through low branches, finding home another upwards into the ribs. He fell, not at all quietly. I pulled my blade, and jabbed downward to flick away the black blood. His friend was nearby. I had seen him skulking amidst the trees. Was I to follow him into a trap? No, I will know if he should follow. I turned about, and took towards Mithrim. Its distance was not far from Angfauglith. If I could only reach close enough, I could sing a few notes to alert those stationed at the encampment.

But then I heard it, feared it: a Balrog still stalked in the forest's outer reaches. Its ghastly scream burned the air I breathed. I could hear it as it found my kin in their flight. I could hear it roar when it was that the brute raised his violence upon them. I began to fly towards the encampment witless of any possible ambuscade along the way. How damned foolish I was. The Sindar were right in their notion in pulling away to consort with Thingol. Now when I reach him, the Hidden Kingdom will combine with my kin. We will meet Morgoth again and blast him out of Thangorodrim.

Three shadowy personages were then before me. Two lurked directly in front, standing taut and ready with their fanged-tipped swords. I could scent another lurking in verdure below a tree that stood nigh twelve feet high to my left.

"Have this steel, then!" I brandished my sword towards the scum.

The two visible approached, and I stood my ground knowing not to incite a surprise from the one hidden. Their crooked blades hung limp from their hands that leveled at their waists. A feint! Only their brood includes imbeciles who would lure me into their game.

It was no surprise that a fourth appeared. I swung for his muzzle, and he ducked clear of the steel. The thing crinkled its lips and I could see a brief smile contorted over its black skin. He was unarmed. A fist shot into my abdomen. I coughed and spat as I fell to the ground. Again, I brought my sword across. It struck his thigh, and when I rose to strike again, the same fourth had brought his fist into my eyes.

Dizzied, my vision blurred and blackened. There were splotches of light around figures standing with monstrously vague profiles moving. And desperate screams sounded, though I cannot say if they made much sense to me. _Be taken! Not be taken… You cannot… turn me. _These screams echoed and quieted, and there were no more sounds. But then a scuffling came. The yellow light was dim, and the figures were still difficult to see, but they were approaching me. That was certain.

I knew I had to pull my dagger quickly and make choice cuts on their legs. But just as soon as my next move came to me, someone had begun pouring salty piss-water down my forehead and into my mouth. Head jostling and mouth expelling what it could, I awoke with my hands fettered and a thick chain hooked from the fetters to a smooth, black wall.

"You were shivering, Maedhros," a slimy voice told me. "That is what happens to the body outside its cozy walls."

I looked at the cretin. He was minutely Elven—a new terror produced from the corrupt machinations of Morgoth. He wore a sleeveless hauberk and his skin was yellow poison. Drawing my gaze away from him, I saw that I was in a room likely hewn out of the mountains of Thangorodrim itself. It was dim, and the air here choked me. The atmosphere was plump with what was likely the smoke chimneys that rose countless leagues from under the ground. "I am in Angband," I said.

"Yes. And in Angband you shall remain." The mutant gestured to the shadow behind him, and two Orcs stepped forward. One brute limped. He had been mended at his thigh with a grimy binding.

"This is the little thing that fought so bravely!" the wounded Orc said.

"Same wretch, eh Gungrach? The son of such-and-such a dusty elf, is it?" his companion said. If I somehow found a moment of freedom, they would need to dismember my hands, for I wouldn't let a single breath escape as I strangled the thing who spoke thusly.

The one named Gungrach approached me. His eyes were venomous, and I knew his pride still ached from his flawed combat.

"We shall bring him to the master," said the mutant elf.

"All very well and good," said Gungrach. "But would you look at him: bedraggled and mucked up. He's one of our dogs now. No royalty here." He kicked the lengthy chain, but the insult did not suffice for him. He leaned forward and struck me down the nose with his knuckles. Perhaps it is the hatred accursed that was bound to my father, but I knew that I needed revenge on this Orc. I needed to cut into him slowly to rectify the name of my bloodline to this one warrior-slave.

The mutant elf unchained me from the wall, and the two Orcs lifted me to my feet. The elf mutant looked at me. "Come at once," he said. One of the Orcs went behind me, poking a hooked sword into my back. He stuck it deep enough to puncture skin, and I walked on. There was a door at the far side of the room. For the first time, I noticed there were more prisoners. They were soldiers of my kin, some of whom I recognized vaguely, and there was also one of Sindarian ilk that came with us from Mithrim. Looking towards the floor with downcast eyes, it was obvious to me that they could not bear to look at their leader. Yet I promised every one of them that I would return.

"That's a laugh," Gungrach said. "You're stuck here for good and all."

"Then I promise that I shall kill you."

He let out a laughing caw and slid his blade along my ribs. "I'd say you're wrong. All wrong. There's not a way you'll get your way, little elf."

They opened the door to an arched causeway that bridged between what was likely the stockade where I was put and a rising monolith of muddy iron from which Morgoth watched us all. The latter edifice stuck out from limitless pits below; it was a tower dotted with glassless windows where fiery lights exuded.

I was close enough to edge of the causeway to see the pits. Such stranger advancements lurked below. Morgoth had fashioned a twisted apparatus that was animate and possibly alive. Below I saw a motion of spinning: dozens of round objects shaped as discs—all of them with teeth spanning around the base. They crawled slowly into each other. The sound was indescribable. I could not match its likeness to any other thing I have seen in Arda. Yet the smell was familiar. It was rot and grease and slag. It stunk of torture and the warfare's industry. It was disturbing to see the innovations of the Enemy. Puffing smoke issued from below. Were the Balrogs also lurking below in their lightless den? Did they help devise new weapons to combat my elfkin? I could no longer bear to look, but the mutant had stopped and he, too, peered down below the causeway.

"I am of Teleri blood, Maedhros, son of F_ë_ano_r,"_ the mutant said suddenly. "There at Aqualondë, you brought ruin upon the quays. A kinslaying. It is with an odious reputation that you walk the world outside our walls. Yet I can forgive it." He smiled briefly before his lips creased acidly. "Those remarkable ships were some destroyed and many taken. I had left behind my brethren long ago to unite with the Master, but for those ships I carried a great love. That you took it upon yourself to destroy and commandeer them expresses to me a wonderful thing."

"And why is that?" I asked. I was not sure, but I feared that revealed underlying guilt, but I dared not address it then and there.

"Partly that this is retribution, and partly that those ships might buy you terms that your brethren denied. Yet even still, it is not enough, for who am I to aspire to—"

"My brethren denied terms?"

"Why, they still seek to destroy us! That is as much what our spies would have us know. Our enemies regroup." He laughed pleasantly and resumed leading on to the tower. "Yours are an unbelievably stubborn folk. They themselves are quite ruthless in pursuing justice."

I was prodded to move, so I trailed behind the mutant and kept my eyes on him. It would seem that I am not alone and that it is only a matter of time that I might be rescued. "I am in no way surprised," I agreed.

The causeway terminated into arched double doors. They were opened, allowing us to walk past the threshold, finding a corridor alit with small burning sconces. Many rooms lined the corridor wherein countless weapons littered the walls and floor, and some held orcs feasting on things that were raw, bloody. At the end there was a stairway that twisted upwards, connecting storey to storey. We took the stairs and came at last to the floor of their master. Here, shadow slept over the ceiling of a vaulted hallway. One could still hear the industrious breath from the chimneys outside. Perhaps the smoke floated within Morgoth's tower as well, though it seemed strange that it was accompanied by a sound more akin to a giant's breathing than it did the constant chugging below the bridge.

The mutant explained that my gracious host would dine with me."And you would be wise to accept what our master has to offer you, for it might be a while until you should have something solid again. And it is the closest you'll find yourself in reaching your treasures and perhaps your vengeance," he added right before he rested his hands on doors' bars.

Repulsive glibness; his was the result of a naïve rebel whose master thrives on discord. Yet as servants, they all of them have their uses until the dreaded moment that they are expendable soldiers thrown to their foes as shields. And his physicality shall become ever more grotesque, befitting to both soldier and slave of the Iron Prison.

The mutant opened the door to his master's chambers. Pangs of torment produced sweat above my brow as I beheld torturous sights and objects of terror. Cages there were which housed prisoners who were still very much alive and in no doubt special to Morgoth's designs. It was either bravery or confusion that they did not produce the answers he wanted, otherwise they might have been locked in the stockade. I feared that Morgoth planned to encage me as well, but I hid my dread, keeping as staunchly as I could to my determination to stay true to the Noldor.

I began to feel that after so many steps, the floor gave into a surface sticking under the soles of my boots. It was pasty wet with red. The smell was nauseating, dizzying. Fires clawed at shadow deep towards the end of the room where his throne was situated. Yet he was not in it. A long obsidian table lay to the side beside the vacant chair. The surface was covered with dining accoutrements and a spread of roasted hog and potatoes. Beside the fires of his throne room, I could detect a subtle light emanating from a slender chalice in the center of the table. I then looked into his haunting eyes. Those orbs possessed a secretive history, one of betrayal and not at all in regret. Morgoth was sitting at the end of the table with a goblet in his right hand.

"Good evening," the Fiend said. He smiled through an array of thorny teeth. His black hair slithered down his shoulders. Garbed in a dark robe, you could not see any of his body save for his long hands. The hand, which held the chalice, was scarred and twisted like the stirring of thick broth. And upon his head he wore a crown that housed my desire: the Silmarils. Yet of the three sockets, there was one left empty. I feared that this signified his evil design.

"Will you not sit, good Maedhros?" He asked me. Then looking at the mutant: "Leave us at once."

The mutant bowed and left his chambers.

His majesty, the master of Angband, presented himself a dignified host, yet it was plain that his pleasantries were some sort of playacting. I knew no matter what he would offer I'd not lose my resolve.

I looked at what lay on the table. "Do you not fear what I might do with a free knife meant for swine?" I asked.

"Do you mean to say that I risk becoming dinner?" He smiled wider. "Come now, sit down. I fear no elf. Look around at the prisoners here. They all of them were in positions similar to your own. Though to be sure, not one of them are offspring of F_ëanor._ Please, sit. You stand for no purpose other than for conflict, yet here is but a feast to show you that I mean you no ill will, but simple hospitality. I believe that every intelligent being shares this one quality: kindness unto a guest in one's home. You are not an enemy here, and in frankness, your status of enemy is simply the consequence of another's hatred."

"You would do well to leave my father unmentioned in these talks," I advised him. I could tell he did not take any reprimanding lightly. His wrathful eyes narrowed for an instant, and then he resumed his affable calm.

"Very well," he said, waving his free hand. "Would you like a glass of wine? I trust the shackles are not too restricting. Would you not sit yourself down?"

I refused his wine, but I did take the chair on the opposite end. The face of the cooked pig stared in my direction.

"I suppose if you won't have any drink, you'll not take any of this food, too. What a shame. Do not think it will go to waste!" he said in sweet assurance. "Let us cut to the quick, Maedhros. A bargain for you. See my part there in the chalice. It shines but a little of life, does it not?"

I nodded, knowing immediately what produced the light. Looking upon the chalice, I was emotionally disarmed. My tension was loosed, and I felt an easing towards longing for what was kept in that chalice. Did he continue speaking, I wondered, realizing how fully entranced I was by the jewel. If he had, I knew not what was said, for my fixation was indelibly stuck upon its delicateness. A feeling both alien and oddly victorious had taken my heart. But one eye had strayed or it was the cup that moved, for I resumed my gaze at Morgoth. _His smile_. How I wish I could cut out his jaw from smiling ever again. I no longer saw him as an adversary, but as an irritating obstacle in my way of obtaining what I knew was the Silmaril. But what offer might he make, for surely he would construe one appealing. And it was contingent to my answers, as well as to the jewel. I knew I could not take the thing and escape. It was impossible, but could I be given it?

"What you desire most sits in the bottom of that cup, does it not, good Elf?" Morgoth said soothingly.

"Yes."

"I can allow you to have it, Maedhros. You can hold it at any time, but there is a stipulation. I have heard of the coming of many of your brethren into Doriath. Yet there is a popular rumor amongst my prisoners. It is apparent to me that there is a mighty city now in its nascent years. A city hidden from my eye, but growing into a power. I can only conclude that it belongs to the Sindar whose presence seems less pronounced than your kin, but I am not so sure."

"I know little of such a city. Land is land and peoples will follow it, I think. I do not know where they go."

"Oh, indeed," he said in a leathery way. "But you must understand that if you were to explain to me any detail of planned site, I might allow you to at least touch the Silmaril. A gift for the moment. Would you pass on this opportunity? Furthermore, with the right appeasements, it could become a parting gift—a token reminder that you and your Noldor kin will have ended your stubborn war against me. A marvelous outcome would come to this which would be our first and only meeting, would it not?" He put his glass to his lips. "Naturally, this condition would also bring an everlasting peace between your people and Angband. Could you not see the prosperous good I offer? My powers are great, my legions numbering vast into a mighty tide against all who stand before it. What weapons could match mine? What powers would willingly aid your mission?"

I was troubled to admit this in thought, but the notion was sound. If anyone could convince the rest of the house of Fëanor to withdraw from further advancements, it alone would be me. Such peace would be well worth the sacrifice of any information concerning Thingol's city. I could make it vague. He spoke that the city was not yet constructed. Perhaps, it is still in its prospective developments as was mentioned. And we would have peace and the jewel in our possession. We would have that which we strove to obtain, and father's spirit will find rest.

But no, it was impossible. Any such hopes, such selfish hopes, had dissipated and I then remembered the Oath to its fullest. The Enemy was now, to me, clear again. He looked at me intently. Any confused idea to betray the Oath was itself ridiculous, and the monster understood my conflict too well. I stood up. "I will not tell any secrets of my people," I said, "even if the jewel is a prize to my brothers."

He smiled again, as if expecting this exact answer. He gestured with a placating palm. "That will do, Maedhros," he said. "I am regularly surprised by the resoluteness of my captives. Yet, I simply cannot fathom how one could reject so impressive a gift."

Then Morgoth was rising. He laid the goblet next to his plate, and came suddenly to my side. His massive frame was distorted hideously from his former anatomy. In his tortured strides, he came stooping forward. Finer details could be distinguished in such closeness. Bones tugged skin as they jutted crookedly in his arms. His robes could not hide all of his withered back which hunched enough to have his neck appearing longer than it ought. "I know what you have become," he said, staring icily into my eyes. "No more an elf than you are a crude, unsavory emotion. You are vendetta, and nothing beside. Look at you now. There's a fire for a soul within you, and the Silmaril cannot help it. And you must slay me?"

"Curse or not," I said, surprised of my choice of words. "And indeed, I have been sworn to meet you time and again until your demise. It might be that the peaks of Thangorodrim protect you well enough, but I promise you that the elf will bring you a swift defeat and a painful death."

Then the Dark Lord lifted his arms and his robes fluttered wildly. He gripped my shoulder with one large hand and clawed my throat into a clasp with the other. Raising me to the height of his eyes, he spoke: "The peaks of Thangorodrim protect me well-enough, it is true, but perhaps it's best that you learn clearly your futility in the efforts of the frail elf."

Morgoth had me escorted out of his tower. Three Orcs, including the one I maimed, pushed me down a corridor below their master's hall. An egress opened to a winding path that cut into the mountain. The Enemy walked leisurely behind. We came to an area of the mountain untouched by Morgoth's engineers. Here, the cold mountain air slapped its way down my lungs, and the thousand foot precipice that could be seen leagues and leagues away poured smoothly below. I feared the worst. When Morgoth came, he told Gungrach to pull something up from the precipice. The Orc held a long shaft with a hook at the tip. He knelt at the edge of the cliff and slunk the shaft down as if he were fishing.

"What would his majesty desire from down there?" I asked.

"Little Noldor," he said with a warm voice. "If neither you nor your kin will abide by my terms, then there is little use for you. You shall from this day forth hold vigil. You will observe, from the highest point of Thangorodrim, the imminent ruin that I will bring upon Beleriand's denizens."

The shaft was raised with a chain around the hook. It was iron and thick.

Then Morgoth came to me and the other Orcs held me steady. He released my left hand from its bond. Gungrach brought the lengthy chain to Morgoth. The latter took it in his grip and held my right arm with his other. We shared an unbreakable gaze as my wrist was bound to the chain that came from the cliff. Looking down at my wrist, Morgoth smiled grotesquely.

"Let him have the view of Angfauglith," he said.

The Orcs surrounded me again. Digging his nails into my left arm, Gungrach snarled in glee as he and the others pushed me towards the edge. My feet drew up the dirt, and my entire person gyrated in resistance. Gungrach then released me arm, and I took a blow down my backside and fell to my knees. The brutes stood me back up and let me rest a moment to look at the cliff's edge. It was a moment later when they threw me over the edge of Thangorodrim where I then dangled from my arm. White, hot pain cut into my wrist, leaking into the sinews of my shoulder and neck. Below, I could see the dusty valley of Angfauglith. Above, there was a scornful susurrus of laughter. And this was the end, I thought. Hanging from the impenetrable fortress, I contemplated no more.

This was my end. I gazed into the black sky that hooded desiccated over trees in the valley of the Enemy. Thangorodrim's peaks chewed upwards. Here and there, I could spot pyres from what were likely active Orc outposts. It was impossible, foolish to think the elf could combat Morgoth. Powers spinning in the pits of Angband were not yet revealed, and they would see all encroachments. If it were possible to push the Balrog back—if only it were—then it would be the Enemy's industry that would shatter our shields just as easily as the flaming swords of deformed Maiar.

In some hours past, I had lost consciousness only to rouse awake again. A horn blew deep from faraway Hithlum. And something began peeking out from the horizon. Incredible, I thought. Anomalous. Unbelievable sights as these express within all who see it wonderment of what the tide might truly bring. It began cresting above the peaks of Ered Wethrin. Before long, an utter shedding of the world's skin gave way, and light poured into the dales far from Angband. Dawn came forth from a single orb in the sky. And as if to herald the birth of this new light, many trumpets were blown. Triumphantly, they sounded from Hithlum. Yet these were not notes of the Valar; they belonged to an old friend. And I wept happily knowing that I still had friendship in Fingolfin whom my brethren and I had led astray in our wayward fury. I know now who brought this dawn. Bellowing rapturously, I called out to my friends, my allies. I called from up high and the reverberations travelled from stone to stone. I called out to them. I called out to myself.


End file.
